Tag: Age of Empires

Boss Fight Books Gets a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”

The Boss Fight Books series will be getting a bit of an aesthetic refresh with its next book, Age of Empires: How Ensemble Studios Made History.

The iconic stock images have been retired in favor of fully-illustrated covers from “real, human artists.” As you can see, the publisher will also be adding subtitles to all future books in the series, as well as employing a bigger title font.

But don’t worry, the design on the spines will remain the same. So all your previous Boss Fight Books purchases will continue to line up nicely with all of your future Boss Fight Books.

Age of Empires will be written by Richard Moss (who previously authored The Secret History of Mac Gaming and A Tale of Two Halves: The History of Football Video Games), and it’ll feature interviews with more than 25 people who helped bring the strategy game to life (including the Goodman brothers, the Rippy brothers, Ed Fries, and many more).

“Tony came in one day, out of the blue, and said to everybody in the room, ‘Hey, would any of you rather be programming games than databases?'”

Upon its release in 1997, the real-time strategy game Age of Empires turned heads with its varied campaigns, competitive online play, “Hollywood” approach to history, and its bright and colorful aesthetic.

Helmed by brothers Tony and Rick Goodman, Age of Empires was a game about bringing thousands of years of human history to life—and making it fun and accessible. Over the course of its three-year development, the game shifted from an ancient-world twist on SimCity to a historical real-time strategy game, but through all its iterations Age never strayed from that core vision.

Based on interviews with 29 former Ensemble and Microsoft executives and staff, documentarian Richard Moss tells the story of how a scrappy team of first-time developers partnered with the biggest tech company in the world on a game that would test the brothers’ relationship like nothing before.

Boss Fight Books is currently accepting pre-orders for Age of Empires: How Ensemble Studios Made History through Kickstarter. The book will be published in ebook format this June, with the paperback to follow in July.

World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Finalists for Class of 2025 Include Angry Birds, GoldenEye 007, Quake, and More

I can’t say that I blame them, but it sure looks the World Video Game Hall of Fame would like it to be 2023 again. The finalists for the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025 were announced earlier this week, and six games that failed to make the cut from 2023 are getting another try this year. That crop of titles includes Ensemble’s Age of Empires, Rovio’s Angry Birds, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Rare’s GoldenEye 007, Visual Concepts’s NBA 2K, and id Software’s Quake.

They’ll be competing against two other returning finalists, Konami’s Frogger (which was last up as a finalist in 2020) and the Mattel Football handheld .

Unorthodox handhelds are something of the theme this year, as Bandai’s Tamagotchi digital pet is a finalist (for the first time) as well. It’s joined by a trio of other first-timers including Midway’s Defender, Incredible Technologies’s Golden Tee Golf, and Natsume’s Harvest Moon.

“This year’s finalists span the decades and range from arcade classics to one of the most popular mobile games of all time,” said Jon-Paul Dyson, the Director of The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games. “All of these games have enormously influenced pop culture or the game industry itself. Frogger was popular in the arcades of the 1980s, but an iconic Seinfeld scene in 1998 made it unforgettable. The brilliant coding of the first-person shooter Quake enabled unforgettable multiplayer matches that have mesmerized players and influenced many games that followed. Then there’s Tamagotchi, which bridges the gap between video games and digital toys, changing the way we think about games.”

The Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee, a body made up of journalists and scholars from around the world, is currently debating which of these games to induct as part of the Class of 2025, and you can help. A Player’s Choice Ballot will be available until March 13th and the three games that receive the most votes will be submitted alongside the other ballots from the committee members.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025 will be announced during a ceremony at The Strong on Thursday, May 8, at 10:30 AM. If you’d like to study up on this classic games, the curators at the Strong Museum have put together a cheat sheet describing each of games. You can find it after the break.

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The Last of Us, Quake, and Computer Space Lead 2023’s Crop of Finalists for Induction into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

HBO’s live-action adaptation of The Last of Us completed its first season to widespread critical acclaim this past weekend, and now it looks like the original game is a finalist for induction into the World Video Game Hall of Fame.

Naughty Dog’s groundbreaking action game is part of a dozen finalists vying for a spot in the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023. It was joined by a cadre of other first-time finalists including Ensemble’s Age of Empires, Mattel’s Barbie Fashion Designer, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Nutting’s Computer Space, id Software’s Quake, and Sir-Tech’s Wizardry.

The remaining slots on the shortlist were filled out by five returning finalists, including a few others that have recently been in the spotlight.

There’s GoldenEye 007 from Rare, which will get its second chance at the Hall after a highly-anticipated re-release for the Xbox and Switch in January 2023. Rovio’s Angry Birds is also up for its second shot at induction alongside the surprise delisting of the game from the Google Play Store. And FIFA International Soccer is taking its third shot at the Hall of Fame in the final year before the publisher rebrands the franchise as EA Sports FC. Rounding out this year’s finalists are Visual Concept’s NBA 2K and Nintendo’s Wii Sports.

As always, the World Video Game Hall of Fame will give the public a voice in the final vote from now until March 22 with the Player’s Choice Ballot. The three games that receive the most public votes will be forwarded to the final tally, and they’ll will be weighed alongside the other ballots submitted by the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee.

The inductees to the Class of 2023 will be announced on May 4. And you can learn more about this year’s finalists after the break.

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From the Trenches: Developers Look Back at NBA Jam, Smash Bros. Brawl, and Age of Empires

NBA Jam, Age of Empires, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl had a massive impact on the video game industry, and the men and women who made them surely have some interesting stories to tell.

25 years ago… NBA Jam made its rim-rattling console debut.
21 years ago… Age of Empires conquered the PC world.
10 years ago… Super Smash Bros. Brawl fought its way into our hearts.

All three of these games had a massive impact on the video game industry, and the men and women who made them surely have some interesting stories to tell.

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